February 15, 2007

Now, I'm waiting in the airport... with WiFi. It's not so bad. I paid extra for a nonstop flight, but it got cancelled. Snow in NYC. My connecting flight is delayed an hour, but I found an electrical outlet, and the WiFi here is only $6.95. Lunch is a Starbucks venti latte, with lots of vanilla sugar.

AND: I'm in NYC. LaGuardia airport was insanely crowded. I made it to my 7 pm dinner and am now ensconced in my hotel with a spectacular view, but it's a view that inclines one toward sober thoughts. We overlook the World Trade Center.

Either your photography is getting better or you are becoming a better editor of it. Either way, I think your photo work is really interesting. It seems stronger graphically. Thanks for posting them here.

Let's cancel the NBA game allstar game and play it on a video Xbox thingamajiggy.

Hell cancel Las Vegas period. We can gamble at home on the internets.

And no more global warming concerts for you Al Gore (local artists only- no traveling allowed) so you have to rename your concert the local warming concert (and I agree that does not sound so impressive but try & tough it out).

No more nationwide political calcavades. No more barnstorming book tours for Dr. Phil and the like. We can do it all from the comfort of your living room with teleconferencing.

Why would you pay extra for a non-stop flight? Is that a serious question? Non-stop is less time-consuming and more efficient.

Why are you traveling at all? Why did the chicken cross the road? Because it was stapled to the back of a frog. No, sorry, got that backwards.

Aren't you concerned about Global Warming? edit: small "g" and small "w;" unless you're writing ironically...then good joke!. Impression I get of Ann's daily life is of someone who leaves a relatively small ecological footprint that makes the occasional use of a plane acceptable. Compared to the average congressman. Though she does sometimes write of solitary drives in the country--serving no utilitarian purpose--when she obviously should have been hitchhiking. You're right, Althouse is killing the planet.

Shouldn't you have video-conferenced your way to New York? I could go either way on this. I don't often advocate person-to-person contact, but I hear some people enjoy it. Some things can't be accomplished with a USB port.

Taken a train? Amtrak offers a one-way ticket from Madison to New York for $184. However, they have to bus you to Chicago to get to the train. Trip time is a minimum 22.5 hours, plus a 2-hour layover in Chicago. Checking Travelocity, with a 2-week minimum purchase, I see a non-stop from Chicago to New York is $123/roundtrip. Travel time (roundtrip) is 4.5 hours.

Paying for wi-fi for an hour plus a star bucks latte in an airport -- that's about what a poverty level family has to spend on food each day. Sucks to be them. Often the downtrodden walk by a snooty Starbucks wondering if there's anyway they too may one day be admitted into such an august and exclusive club. Yes, buying a latte is the first step to gaining admittance to such places as the Bohemian Grove. Once you can order a macchiato, you'll be dining with royalty.

What a creepy elitist you are. Creepy seems a bit much and there's nothing wrong with being elitist. And have you been on a plane lately? Like in the last 20 years? Might make you wish air travel was more elitist.

reality, the State of Wisconsin has set limits on lodging. For NYC, it's probably in the $160-$200/night range. Whenever I've flown somewhere, I've just made the request and the travel office we work through does it. When you travel for business, there is accommodation for your schedule, and rightly so. Per diems for breakfast and lunch are $10, for dinner it's $20. I've charged hotel internet access once, when I had to do some work and couldn't do it anywhere but in the hotel room.

The train at Columbus is on the Chicago to Seattle route. You can take in to Chicago, but then there's a wait as you have to change trains to one of the several NY-bound. From Madison, it's simpler to bus to O'Hare, and take the el downtown, than to drive to Columbus.

One correction on the AmTrak. It leaves from a small town near Madison [27 miles] called "Columbus." Of course, driving Silvio to Columbus also leaves a carbon footprint.

Thanks, Ruth Anne. I'll just add that any self-respecting Badger would have waxed up the cross country skis and knocked out that 27 miles in just a few hours...and shotgunning a 6-pack of Leiny along the way. Another sign Ann has not completely shed her elitist, East coast ways.

Reality Check, go here. Report back with your findings. Often it's more educational to look up the answers yourself, rather than have someone always hand them to you. Education is a lifelong process.

Went to jump school in '83. I wasn't scared of the first jump. But once that cave-man part of the brain realized what was going on I became absolutely terrified on the second. Thank God I was in the middle of the stick. (Did land on my buddies shoot and stood their looking at the white gound until he descended faster than me). Still remeber the jumpmaster POed at me for hanging out the plane on the 5th jump, didn't care about me but I might have damage the shoot if I went out early into the trees!

1st Jump, I was numero uno in the stick and got to hang out in the doorway for what seemed like ever. then it was time to go and my hot female Jumpmaster slapped me on the ass and said "Go Stud!" The rest is just a violent blur.

Wait so am I missing something here? Where does the Prof. say she's on a govt. funded boondoggle?

Dang, I'm really old. I went through Jump School in 1966. There were no female Airborne then. T10 chutes, C119 aircraft (which you were glad to get out of). Jumping from the C130 was a pleasure. 19 jumps and I never made a good PLF. Usually it was feet, ass, head. Good thing I was young.

Reality Check, that's the fourth time that you've asserted - with no support - that this trip is on the taxpayer's dime. Comments at 3:12 PM; 3:39 PM; 4:04 PM; 4:44 PM. Simple choice: either explain the basis for the charge or quit repeating it! As Molon noted upthread, "[w]here does the Prof. say she's on a govt. funded boondoggle?"

Molon_Labe_Lamp said... 1st Jump, I was numero uno in the stick and got to hang out in the doorway for what seemed like ever. then it was time to go and my hot female Jumpmaster slapped me on the ass and said "Go Stud!" The rest is just a violent blur.

an assured solution to the problem of the first guy freezing in the door. That normally only happens in jump school. In an operational jump, the LT is going to yell "Follow me" and be first out and the Plt SGT is going to literally "kick ass" and be the last out. It does remind me of a section in "Starship Troopers" arguably a book about future paratroops.

LT Rico and his Platoon are waiting to jump when the female Captain of the troop transport starship comes over the radio, wishing them "good luck and good Hunting". Rico editorializes that female pilots are used on the troop transport because they are the best pilots and because "if one doesn't understand the difference it makes to trooper morale for the last thing he hears before his combat jump to be a female wishing him well, then you have resigned from the human race".

Anyway, is there any reason to believe what she says? She has a conflict of interest here.

I am working with her words in her original article where she says she is going to New York for a symposium and she specifically requested a non-stop flight at extra expense. Any information that comes in later may be interesting to you, but is hardly relevant.

I am just concerned about global warming and elitism and the waste of taxpayer money here. Don't you get that?

reality check said..."Anyway, is there any reason to believe what she says?"

There's a lot more reason to believe what shesays then there is to believe what you say.

"I am working with her words in her original article where she says she is going to New York for a symposium and she specifically requested a non-stop flight at extra expense."

And how do you get from that statement to the premise that this is a taxpayer-funded junket (which is not to concede that there's anything wrong with that even if you're right)?

Here's what you need to get: when you attack someone with no basis whatsoever, you don't get to demand that they refute your allegations or the charges will stand confirmed, you irritating little nosebleed. Who the hell do you think you are?

"I would say the professor paid for this elitist, carbon destroying junket out of her pocket using the $160,000 salary the taxpayers have given her."

"I would say the professor paid for this elitist, carbon destroying junket out of her pocket using the $160,000 salary the taxpayers have given her."

Ah, now the lefty instinct comes out: "how dare you spend your money in ways that I disapprove of

Do you have some sort of reading comprehension problem? I never said anything about taking her money away.

She is free to spend her $160,000 anyway that is legal. If she chooses to use it to destroy the environment, when she of all people could afford a more environmentally friendly manner of travel (or communication) that is her business.

Really, I am just worried about the environment, why don't you get that?

reality check said..."Do you have some sort of reading comprehension problem? I never said anything about taking her money away."

Actually, you do - you just call it "taxation." And were that not enough, you want to restrict by law and criticize the way the remainder is spent.

"I am just worried about the environment, why don't you get that?"

I'm almost inclined to take a private jet up to Chicago next week, just to to irritate you. But I'd go so far as to say that you don't give a shit about the environment, RC - the only pattern that emerges from your comments here in terms of your interests and what you care about is how you can poke Ann with sharp sticks today.

Seeing reality check speak truth to power is just a little less fun than eating a sand-and-crushed glass casserole.

Such a classic nosebleed prick, a humorless PC snivelling cowardly scold, ready to show the uncaring world how much he loves humanity but hates its undeserving people.

And the latte? That's how markets work, you bonehead. Althouse overpays for coffee, and the downtrodden laborers take her money and buy stuff with it. Same for the pricey plane ride and hotel. Maids buy food, baggage handlers pay rent, waitstaff pays off their mortgage. All from Althousian splurgitude.

P.S. And in reality check's honor, I'm going to increase my personal carbon footprint 100-fold this weekend just to make the damn temperature go up a degree because this horrendous global warming is freezing my pipes.

Reality Check, just so we are all operating with the same terms, when Pogo writes 'rent', he means that money your parents will start charging you around, oh, your 23rd birthday or so at which time you will learn another very important word. Economics.

"I am working with her words in her original article where she says she is going to New York for a symposium and she specifically requested a non-stop flight at extra expense."

While she may be incurring an "extra expense" by flying nonstop, she is also leaving a smaller carbon footprint by taking off and landing only once, instead of twice (or more). It should also be noted that the plane was flying, regardless of her being on it or not. An aircraft is a mode of mass transportation after all.

It also seems to me that Ann spent her dime to use less fuel and expedite her trip...

and speaking of expediting...

Taking a train, or some other slower form of transportation, would also mean that she was taking even more time off, therefore costing those of us who pay WI taxes more money.

It appears that Ann is actually being more responsible both ecologically and fiscally than you give her credit for, RC.

Um, Reality Check, a stop-over flight is less efficent than a non-stop flight. For short-haul flight, take-off and climbing is a large portion of the total fuel burn. That's part of the reason the crusing altitude for short flights is lower than long flights, even if it's the same model. It just isn't worth it to climb higher, if all you're gonna do is land soon.

RC, your logic, if it could be called that, seems to be "if it reduces your carbon footprint, you should do it." In that case, I suggest you stop using your computer immediately, save some electricity, and save the environment, in more ways than one. Also, try breathing less.

(Long hiatus from commenting...the new system somehow forgot my password, and I certainly don't remember it. Proof to myself that I am not addicted to blogging!)

Simon, it is an occupational hazard!! But if you bother to read some of Reality Check's posts, and I understand if you do not, you will see that he really can turn a phrase. That is a mark of intelligence in my book.

And one left screaming lefty and one more cogent Democrat would be a good thing, even for an Conservative like me. I appreciate the Democrats, it is the liberals that are so annoying.

It's gratifying to see that Ann's own arguments against Nancy Pelosi didn't hold water with you guys.

She said it was about the elitism, but you didn't buy that. She said it was about the global warming but you didn't buy that. She said it was about the non-stop vs. direct flight, but you didn't buy that. She said it was about the taxpayer's money, but you didn't buy that.

So I guess after all of that, we all of us together concluded it really was just a way for Ann to write another hit piece against a Democrat, the way I wrote one against conservative Ann.